A new prime minister needs to make a coded statement or two when choosing their new ministry. An obvious statement of Scott Morrison's new ministry[1], announced on Sunday, is that cybersecurity is no longer worth specific attention.
Angus Taylor, who was previously the junior Minister for Law Enforcement and Cyber Security under Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton, is now the Minister for Energy. I'm sure we'll all appreciate his views on what he's called the "new climate religion"[2], which has "little basis on fact and everything to do with blind faith". We may also be amused by his support for loopy theories[3] about the dangers of wind farms.
But Taylor hasn't been replaced. There's now no specific focus on law enforcement and cybersecurity. Those responsibilities have apparently been absorbed back into the general ministerial overview and guidance provided by Dutton himself.
While he's still Minister for Home Affairs, Dutton has lost the Immigration portfolio. That was a slab of work. One might argue, therefore, that he now has more time on his hands, and that a junior minister for the cybers is no longer needed.
First, Dutton isn't exactly strong on the idea that digital communications need to be protected. As a former cop, and as what might politely be called a law-and-order maximalist, Dutton sees digital communications as something to be intercepted, and the more interception of it the better.
Only in April, Dutton's head of department Mike Pezzullo was sprung proposing that the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD) be allowed to spy on Australian citizens[4]. While government figures attempted to hose that down as being not a "formal" proposal[5], it was nevertheless somewhere in Pezzullo's brain, and therefore in